GET WOW BROWS WITH TRACIE GILES’ NANO NEEDLE TECHNIQUE

Not all of us are pros with the eyebrow pencil, that’s why it’s best to leave one of the most important parts of your morning makeup routine to the experts. Not only will the team at Knightsbridge’s Tracie Giles Permanent Makeup give you natural-looking brow make up, but it will last for years, meaning that you’ll have perfect power brows for Christmas, New Year and far beyond…

Words: Rachel Mantock

Hair stroke brows and microblading are both words that have been buzzing around the brow scene for a while now, the latter being the newer of the two. Hair stroke brows aim to assimilate real brow hair using ink and a fine needle that is pressed into the skin in light motions in the direction of your natural hair by a trained expert.

Microblading works slightly differently – sharp, thin blades are used to make fine stroke cuts in your eyebrow area and then ink is rubbed into them, creating a thinner ink brow hair than the hair stoke tattooing technique is capable of.

Type #microblading into your Instagram search bar and thousands of pictures of perfectly preened, thick, Cara Delevingne worthy eyebrows will pop up. If you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t suspect they’d had anything done to their brows at first glance, not even a brush of brow powder, they look extremely natural.

The power brow trend looks set to continue well into 2017

Microblading is the buzzword on every brow fanatic’s lips, producing finer hair strokes than the hair stroke technique

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Like everyone else, I was keen to jump on the microblading bandwagon, that was until the knowledgeable team at Tracie Giles Permanent Makeup let me know that there were actually a range of options available.

Their elite brow technician, Jody explained that while microblading originally achieves a very crisp, fine brow stroke, the ink does not hold as well and fades quicker than hair stoke techniques. Microbladed brows also tend to lose their sharpness and dull quickly once fully healed, almost as if the ink slightly bleeds outside of the edges of the original hair stroke.

Launching her permanent makeup service in 2003, Tracie Giles has become a leader within the UK’s aesthetics scene. Her clinic quickly became the go to place for celebrities and high profile bloggers alike. With a lengthy career in the industry and the best training, Giles swiftly came up with a solution to the hair stroke vs microblading dilemma.

She combined the fine stroke capabilities of microblading with the staying power of hair stroke techniques, resulting in a natural hair stroke with great staying power, retaining its crispness and colour. She labelled this technique the Nano Needle Brow Treatment.

The sparkly, pink interiors of Tracie Giles Permanent Makeup

Brow training at the Tracie Giles Clinic

The Tracie Giles Permanent Makeup Clinic in Knightsbridge

Ready to put these claims to the test, I headed down to Tracie Giles Permanent Makeup as a test guinea pig of sorts. After a brief wait in the sparkly waiting area, I headed down the stairs with elite brow technician Jodie and we talked about the type of shape and look I wanted to achieve.

After this, Jodie created a shape for each brow using a pencil as a preview. Once I confirmed I was happy with the shape, my brows were plucked, numbing cream was applied and Jodie began needling away.

The appointment lasted an hour, and while at times it was a bit uncomfortable, it’s less painful than getting a wax. Brows take two weeks to heal after this and you have to be careful not to get them wet for seven days. This is the hardest part of the entire process, it takes all your willpower to not scratch as your brows scab and flake as they heal, making them intensely itchy!

At first, your brows may look too bold but as they heal they will fade into a more natural look. A top up appointment is required four weeks later, but once this is done, you are set with perfect brows for months to come as they last for up to two years.

Treat yourself this Christmas – not having to draw on your brows every morning should be enough to get anyone down to Tracie Giles’ Beauchamp Place clinic…